Recently I added a remote start to my car. All is good in the world. Unfortunately, I work at an airport and my car is about a 15 minute shuttle ride from my office. There is not much opportunity to ‘stand at the door and wait for warm car’ there.
But cruising the web, I happened upon the Viper website, where I read about a new system where you can start your car via an iPhone from virtually anywhere. After looking into the system, I soon stumbled onto the fact that the system is ridiculously expensive, as is everything that has to do with the Godforsaken iPhone newer technology. Further research on the subject yielded little hope, as all other systems were out of my budget (cheap as heck).
My co-worker and I started daydreaming on the subject (what goes on at an airport that we would need to pay attention?) When I stumbled on an idea. My remote start has a wire called the Remote Start Activation Input. Now the job of the RSAI is, from the manual: “This wire will start the vehicle when it sees two negative pulses. Only used when incorporating into existing alarm or FOR TESTING PURPOSES.” That last part I capped and bolded, as that is what is most important for me. “Testing” consists of simply grounding that wire for two pulses in order to start the car. Two more pulses shuts it down, exactly like using the remote.
Bingo, I had my way in! Here is what I came up with:
I hope you can tell what is going on there. If not, here is a synopsis, and a little bit of method behind my madness…
The remote start requires 2 pulses within 3? seconds to initiate the remote start sequence. So how to send those 2 pulses? Easy, I remove the vibrate motor from a cell phone or pager and use that circuit to initiate the remote start by setting the phone to vibrate. But wait…the RSAI only works when put to ground, that circuit has (after testing) a 1.35v current. I guess I have to use a relay! Oh no…The remote start turns off after 2 MORE pulses. How do I get the cell phone to STOP sending rings? Hrm…
The answer came from beegbie over at the12volt.com. The remote start start up sequence goes like this. Sense Input>Turn on Accessories>Try to Crank Engine. If I put a normally closed relay on the vibrate circuit triggered by the vehicle accessory circuit, then once the remote start sequence kicks off, any subsequent rings by the phone won’t be ‘heard’ by the remote start.
Whew!
Here are some pictures of the tear down and modification of the cell phone:
Purchased this phone for $10 from CVS Pharmacy along with $20 worth of prepaid minutes. Phone came with a battery and wall wart charger.
Removed the 6 tri-wing (fail) screws holding the inner bezel on. Once off, all the goodies are revealed. You can remove the PCB fairly easily, but for the most part it is single sided.
Here I have already removed the vibrate motor and soldered wired back into it’s place. I wanted an easy way to remove the phone if I needed to make any modifications to it or add minutes, or hell, even make an emergency phone call. I decided on desoldering the headphone jack from and isolating it with that paper stuff I got from another board. I glued the paper down, then glued the jack to it. Then I soldered the pins that correlate to the 2nd & 3rd pins on the headphone jack to the wires coming off the vibrate motor resistors. I chose (had no choice) to solder the wires to the resistors due to me tearing out the traces on the pcb when removing the motor. I was a little skittish applying the amount of heat required to remove that bish, thinking I might desolder some of the tiny little components around it. Also of interest to some would be my choice of wire. That is two strands from a IDE connector. One is marked to denote it’s polarity. (It helped, really.)
Here is a picture of the headphone jack lookin’ all normal and stuff. I like a nice clean install. This way the phone loses only the functionality of vibrate and using a headset. I can still set the ringer, make calls, etc.
Here is the modified headphone jack for the hookup. This is a 2.5mm (mini) headphone jack that I had from a cheap headset from another phone. The wires were those damned coated wires, and quite puny at that, so I cut apart the boot and desoldered them at the source. I then removed 2 wires from a 10ft piece of cat5e and soldered them in place, shrink wrapped and Bob’s yer uncle. Why, you should ask, did I use Ethernet cable. Several reasons: It is sturdy, it was solid not stranded, I could pick my length and I have about 300 feet in a box behind me.
All in all I think the thing may actually work. I need to source some cheap solid state relays that initiate below 1.5 volts. I am also thinking about maybe using an optoisolator, as I have 2 in a scavenged pcb beside me that are in the correct voltage range. I will still need a 30A auto fuse for the other relay, though. I have a breadboard on order from Sparkfun that should come in handy for testing.
The best part of this project are the possibilities. Not only can I remote start my car from afar, I can also use the other features of the phone to automate the remote start. I can set up to 4 alarms on this phone, and set them to vibrate. Since I work 4×10 shift, that is perfect for starting my car everyday before work. Also, that phone has a timer on it that can also trigger the vibrate function. Haven’t figgered out a practical use for that yet. But the Pièce de résistance is the Calendar. I can set nearly unlimited events into the calendar, and set an alarm to trigger the vibrate at or before the event in 15 minute intervals. I can also set the as ‘recurring events’, too. I could program in mine and my wife’s work schedules, upcoming doctors appointments, ANYTHING! Not bad for a $10 phone. I am glad that I decided to make the phone easily connect/disconnectable.
Check out Part 2 to see if I can actually pull it off.
January 19th, 2010 on 5:13 PM
What ready remote start model are you using?
January 19th, 2010 on 9:20 PM
Hrm, lemme find the box, it was the one on Woot.com a few months back- bought 2 of them… … … OK, sorry to be gone so long. It is the Directed Electronics (parent company of Viper) Ready Remote 24926. Got it off Woot! for about $35. I have seen them on amazon and the like for around $50 now. It works great, and install is super easy.
January 19th, 2010 on 11:23 PM
i want to say congrats. can you do this on anythoer lg phone? i have an lg so justwanting to know if you knew how to do it on all lg phones.
January 20th, 2010 on 7:45 AM
You can probably do it on nearly any phone. Just take it apart, find motor. Remove judiciously. Apply wires. Have fun! You could do it with pagers, digital timers, thermostats, egg timers- nearly anything that sets off an alarm.
January 17th, 2012 on 2:06 PM
I know this comment is a couple years old by now, but… I just want to say I picked up a Tracfone Samsung T105g and it makes it supper easy! The connection between the vibrate mechanism and phone is a lot like the connection between the battery and phone; they’re not fixed. When you close the case they touch and make the connection, but once the case is opened they aren’t together anymore. Makes it super easy to solder up the wires to the boards vibrator connection – no ripping out or de soldering the vibrate mechanism.
Also, the minutes last for 3 months ($20 for 120min), and the phone was only $10. So it pretty cheap. And you can set it up to block all incoming calls except the one(s) in the contacts.
Makes it a pretty good candidate for this project.
So if you have access to this phone, I’d highly recommend it.
January 20th, 2010 on 10:51 AM
How easy would it be for someone to steal your car now that exposed wires can be used to start the vehicle?
January 20th, 2010 on 11:13 AM
Probably 10% easier than it would be if I hadn’t done anything at all. Once I get it all stuffed back into the dash, the only exposed wires will be from the phone; and while you could use those to start the car, you still cannot drive it. There is a kill switch on the brake pedal that will shut off the car unless the key is inserted. Plus without the key there is no way to turn the wheel.
Also, contrary to what you see in the movies, there is a bundle of about 12 wires under the steering column, and they are all color-coded differently in different vehicles. Twisting 2 or 3 wires together will start your car, but it will barely be drivable.
Besides, if anyone wants to steal my 12-year-old Nissan, they can have at it.
January 20th, 2010 on 11:06 AM
i’m pretty sure these same instructions could be used as IED triggers…
January 20th, 2010 on 11:09 AM
The same instructions could be used to remotely turn on your Christmas Tree lights while you are on vacation too.
January 20th, 2010 on 9:55 PM
Hack of the year my friend! Ive had this idea rolling around in my head for a while, knew it was simple.. glad to see someone else out there thinks like me!
Bravo!
January 20th, 2010 on 10:59 PM
Astonishing article . Will definitely copy it to my blog.Thanks
February 7th, 2010 on 10:57 AM
One trick to try as well depending on how your car is wired is to set up a remote turn-on of the rear-window defroster after the car starts. If your remote start unit has a trunk release function that sends a short pulse to activate the trunk release mechanism, you may be able to connect that in such a way that the pulse turns on the defroster.
February 9th, 2010 on 1:49 PM
That would be cool, except in the summer. Also, I am working on a version that you can hook up all the functions of the remote start and access them individually from the phone.
January 21st, 2010 on 8:32 AM
What happens if someone accidentally dials the start phone’s number?
January 22nd, 2010 on 3:37 AM
It’ll ring, start, run for 15 mins then shut down. I am going to set up phone # filtering if my phone has it.
January 22nd, 2010 on 2:19 PM
You may be able to set custom rings. Set the phone to ring silent, and then set the ringer for your number as vibrate?
January 22nd, 2010 on 2:28 PM
Yup. That’s the idea.
December 1st, 2010 on 1:59 PM
Or use google voice to route the numbers to your phone. That way you can easily set up individual filters
August 26th, 2010 on 1:13 PM
Nothing will!
start phone’s number can be set to vibrate to a particular
number which is pump set owner’s one.
January 21st, 2010 on 5:46 PM
@mazer
That’s exactly how it’s done actually. But don’t worry, the terrorists already know.
January 22nd, 2010 on 3:45 AM
Correction: The 71.03 INCLUDES the price of the remote start.
February 6th, 2010 on 2:53 PM
Do you have system for sale.
February 9th, 2010 on 2:02 PM
No, I do not, but look for a kit available soon.
December 26th, 2010 on 5:02 PM
Have you thought about just using the alarm function of the cell phone? That way you don’t have to keep paying for the cell phone minutes. I’m thinking of using my old T-Mobile Nokia RH121 to turn on an irrigation system for my greenhouse.
December 30th, 2010 on 2:00 PM
I actually did exactly that. It works fantastic. Well, worked, lol. Using solid UTP cable was not the best as the vibration in the car made it break off. I need to re-do the connector to the project box with stranded cable. Link to your project if you get it done!
September 17th, 2015 on 5:36 PM
hi I had a couple questions about the phone regarding the size of the tri wing screw driver you used and if the lcd screen in it can be replaced
September 29th, 2015 on 7:15 PM
Um, I don’t know. And the tri-wing screw was very small. I used a very small flat head screwdriver to remove it.
October 7th, 2015 on 10:03 PM
Got a set of tri wings and looks like it takes a Y00 triwing same size as a gameboy and the lcd looks like it’s just attached with a ribbon so should be replaceable